How do you charge someone financially or criminally though? If they won't give you any information, your options are to either release them and never see any money, or call the police and never see any money; not to mention the countless legal and ethical issues with trying to legally charge people who use medical services.

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It's not just people who call 911 for fun, it's drug addicts who repeatedly overdose and will never pay, and people without health insurance who call an ambulance and go to the ER for routine issues. You can't just deny care because they won't pay, there's an obligation, both legally and ethically, to treat and stabalize them, yet you're never going to see a dime from them.

Because when you send an EMS bill to most people (ie people that aren't abusing the ambulance service) it gets sent to insurance and paid or paid out of pocket. However, when the ambulance picks up a john doe who doesn't have their insurance and never even provides a real name or contact information, there's nobody to send a bill too. You can't "just charge the people abusing it" because it's not a service that gets denied if people don't pay.

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See u/knockatize's post. You think someone who calls thousands of ambulances actually pays for each call? How about somebody who overdoses in the street?